Column: Many distinguished marks in my town

Lawrence Button

Thursday

Jan 6, 2011 at 12:01 AMJan 6, 2011 at 6:21 AM

As a proud resident of Wellsville, and being born and raised mostly in this town, you hear all kinds of stories passed down by relatives, neighbors, and friends. One of the things that always fascinated me was the rich heritage and history of Wellsville. I remember one time asking someone how Wellsville got its name.

I was told, probably like many of us, that Wellsville was named because of the Oil wells that helped Wellsville become what it is today. Being curious and having a deep passion for history, I decided to do a little digging.
Some claim that the name is derived from the oil wells that became an important economic as well as physical feature in the area. But that notion does not take into consideration that the Village of Wellsville was incorporated and named in 1857, 22 years before oil was even discovered in the New York oil field.

Oil was discovered in Wellsville in 1879 by O.P. Taylor and his famous "Triangle No. 1" well in Petrolia, west of Wellsville.

So, that left my curiosity piqued as to how Wellsville got its name. Since it wasn’t named after the Oil wells, then what was it named after? My search continued. I discovered soon after that, that the first town meeting was held on March 4th, 1856, at the home of Harmon Vanburen.

Wellsville was named after Gardiner Wells, a very prominent land-owner. According to history, Mr. Wells was the one man who, for some reason more than likely obscured by the mists of time, was the only person not in attendance at the town meeting where his name was chosen. Some say that the town-folk in attendance at that meeting decided to name the town Wellsville, since Mr. Wells decided not to brave a storm raging in the area.
There are countless accounts of the history of Wellsville stemming from the 1800’s, but I found myself curious, yet again. What happened in this area, and the surrounding lands, before it became a thriving oil boom-town? What was the industry and economic situation here, say, as far back as the 1700’s?

According to a map produced in 1771 for the governor William Tryon, the Wellsville area was originally known by the local Seneca Indians as "Gistaguat" or “Gistaquat.” The map was produced by Guy Johnson.

Known as Gistaguat, or “The Pigeon Woods,” the local Native American tribes would come here from miles around to hold an annual celebration and hunt the pigeons as a delicacy as well as a primary staple of food to tide them over through the bitter Allegany County winters. The passenger Pigeon at the time literally filled the skills with flocks in excess of hundreds of thousands of birds, making them a highly prized food source.

This same Pigeon roost comes into another historical happening near Wellsville in the late 1700’s.

In 1780, a family by the name of Whitmoyer lived near Chillisquaque Creek in what is now Madison Township.

They settled in the valley along Mud Creek in modern Jerseytown, built a cabin and made a life in the wilderness. By 1780 Peter and his wife (née Sheets) had nine children: Sarah (Sally) 17, Philip (the oldest son, probably 15), Catharine 14, Ann 12, Mary 11, Peter 8, George 6, John 4, and an infant. Early on Easter morning in 1780, the family were still in bed except the two girls Catharine and Ann, who were said to be out gathering syrup, and the oldest son Philip, who was attempting to light a fire in the family hearth.

Suddenly and without warning, a Native American raiding party burst in and killed young Philip, followed shortly by his parents. For fear of being discovered by the Pennsylvania rangers, they quickly made off with the remaining children. It is said that in the harrowing journey, the infant did not survive. The Indians rode hard to reach their destination, where the children were split up and adopted by members of the combined raiding party’s members; The Delawares, Mohawk, and Oneidas.

Sarah, or “Sally,” as she was known, was taken to a Mohawk village called “Little Beard’s Town,” on the Genessee River in upstate New York.

The harsh lives of the remainder of the children as well, were recorded in the memoirs of Captain Horatio Jones.

The first recorded settler in the area was Nathaniel Dike, a Connecticut native, moved his Native American wife Esther into the Wellsville area in 1795, two years before the Big Tree Treaty of 1797. The area was still, at the time, Seneca Indian territory. Dike (spelled with an I, not a Y), opened business on the stream which is now known as Dykes Creek. By 1803, Mr. Dike ran a grist mill (a building in which grain is ground into flour), a saw mill and a tannery near this stream.

On old maps, Dykes Creek is spelled with an "I". Dike is buried in Elm Valley, just east of town. His tombstone has the official memorial placed there by the Catherine Schuyler Chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution.

Wellsville has faced an ever-changing economic profile during the past two hundred years. For instance, the first industry in the Wellsville area was tanning, using the bark of the Hemlock tree for its tannins. During the early 1900’s, Wellsville was the site of three large tannery operations.

Nathaniel Dike himself had a crude tannery set up on his homestead, thus effectively becoming the first recorded operating tannery in the Wellsville area around 1805. Since then, other tanneries had literally tons of raw leather imported into the area to be treated.

The Hatch Sole Leather Tannery was the first tannery built in the area, in 1845 in the area now known as the Ward Annex.

One of the large Tanneries stood where many people now live, blissfully unaware that a hundred and fifty years ago, It was a sprawling industrial sight. On the ground around Early and Stevens street, an enormous Tannery once sat, churning out hundreds of pounds of leather a day, with building-sized piles of tannins sprawling the grounds.

The other two tanneries dominated the settlement on modern-day Main Street. One tannery near the corner of South Main, and modern Dike Street near the present day Dunkin Donuts. The other tannery ran its business on the grounds where now stands another Wellsville industry; the Preheater building.

So, to take a look at these modern marvels we now have, and are thankful for, we should take a moment to remember all that Wellsville has felt in its infancy and all of her “growing pains,” if you will.

Lumber, Tanneries, the Railroad; all of these things have left their distinguished mark on us all. With fond memories of our town, I bid you many happy memories.

(The writer lives in Wellsville)

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